About this Exhibition

Sergei Kiselev's solo exhibition “Variations in blue” features his paintings from the series “Suggestive images” and “Spatial Layering”.

Blue is the dominating colour of both series where it’s used in full splendor and diversity from pale turquoise to deep purple. Each work is an artist’s attempt to go through different shades of blue, combine them together, or set in contrast.

The blue color is primarily associated with the sky, purity, innocence, mystery and incomprehensibility. It comprises the sacred, divine, and mystical. This was the color of the ancient cult-objects for the Maya, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. In Christianity, blue is the color of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary. However, this color has also a negative connotation related to black. In eastern countries, blue is the characteristic of demonic creatures, grief and mourning.

The ornament, broken into separate pieces, of no other function but decorative, symbolizes the loss of knowledge and the unbridgeable gap between generations, cultures and epochs. Once meaningful patterns are now randomly woven into a shapeless mass, bespeaking the passing of eras and frailty of the material life. The blue colour becomes the counterpoint — rich, deep, universal, diverse and symbolic.

Each work at the exhibition contains its own “set of keys”: colors, lines, symbols. The viewer is free to decide the way to use this source code. What at the end will be more important? Logic, rationality, analysis, or intuition, emotions and imagination? What comes first: knowledge or experience?